


Linger

by lordy_lou



Series: Interim [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Episode 100, F/M, not hate-sex but hate-makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 19:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15347313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordy_lou/pseuds/lordy_lou
Summary: (It was only ever you, something in the back of her head whispers.  She remembers a letter, when he’d hated himself and praised her, and then him shouting at them all, and her weird fucking magic.  He has to do this, she’d thought.  Like lancing a wound—let the pus and hatred pour out and clean it once it’s over.Then an entire fucking year passed.  He’d come back and damn him, he was still so charming and she didn’t have any control over any of it.)In that moment, a strange sort of rage overtakes Pike.





	Linger

_distant thoughts become cluttered mind—_

_what is a drop in the ocean?_

 

* * *

 

 

“Let’s get out of here,” Scanlan whispers, the arrow in his hand dripping with dust.Pike looks at the ground around them: it’s the same fine dust, and she can see his footprints in the darkness.She wishes Grog was here.The Dust of Tracelessness would come in handy right about now.

(In the split second before Scanlan had magicked away, she’d grabbed his shoulder out of instinct: _he’s going again, he’s leaving again, watch him watch him watch him_ all echoing through her mind.She regrets it now.She hadn’t thought of being alone with him, and what that did to the both of them.)

She is so angry, and the holy symbol slung around her neck warms briefly.Pike closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, Scanlan’s cocked his head at her, a sad smile playing about his mouth.

“Will you hold my hand?” he says softly, eyes darting around the darkness.No one’s around, but that could change in an instant.Still, she recoils from him.

“No,” she says. “Don’t push your luck.” 

“If we’re going to leave, Pike…” 

She’s been entangled in this spell before, and she knows the particulars as well as he does.They’ve got to be touching in some way in order for her to leave, otherwise it’s just him who vanishes.They’d practiced the spell with the rest of Vox Machina during a break from adventuring, figuring out who could come along and how they’d come along—best to figure it out while _not_ in combat—and it’d turned out it was only Pike and only if they’d been holding on to each other.

( _It was only ever you_ , something in the back of her head whispers.She remembers a letter, when he’d hated himself and praised her, and then him shouting at them all, and her weird fucking magic. _He has to do this,_ she’d thought.Like lancing a wound—let the pus and hatred pour out and clean it once it’s over. 

Then an entire fucking year passed.He’d come back and damn him, he was still _so charming_ and she didn’t have any control over any of it _._ )

In that moment, a strange sort of rage overtakes Pike. 

“If we’re going to leave, Scanlan,” Pike mocks.She grabs his hand it and puts on her cheek, over her scar.

She is banking on something.Testing something she refuses to even name in her mind.Pike closes her eyes in the face of Scanlan’s shock.

There is the faintest movement of the air in front of her, and she still refuses to open her eyes.

“Pike,” he says, almost a whisper.“Will you look at me?”

She purses her lips together, and he sighs.There is the barest puff of breath on her face before his hand slides gently down her face to cup her cheek.His hand is rougher than she remembers—he’s done work in his year away.

Pike refuses to open her eyes, and her holy symbol grows warm again.Scanlan’s thumb strokes the bottom of her scar minutely, near her mouth.

“Pike,” he says again.“I forgot to say something.Please, can you look at me?”There is something lovely and questioning laced in his words—not magic, she’d know that—but it’s his own blend of cautious sincerity that she’d seen only rarely before he’d gone, and even then only when he’d been with her.

She opens her eyes to find him near her, bodies not close enough for lovers but certainly closer than friends. _Story of my life, really,_ Pike thinks treacherously.His thumb is stroking the bottom of her scar minutely, as if he doesn’t even know it’s happening.

“Spit it out, Scanlan,” she says, and she means to be coarse and cruel, and it comes out soft and serious.She has never excelled at lying like he has. 

“I told you that I’d changed, right?” His thumb is still rubbing tiny circles into her skin.“There’s one thing that definitely hasn’t.”

 _I love you.I will always love you,_ echoes in her mind.His brown eyes are black in the darkness, and there’s no familiar smile on his face.“You know what I’m talking about,” he says.“The letter.The love.That’s always going to be true.”

 _Who are you to talk about truthfulness?_ she wants to ask him. _Who are you to talk about always, when you’re the one who left?Penny singer, trickster, who are you to talk about love so bravely?_

_Fuck you.I may love you too.Fuck you._

Pike exhales slowly, shudderingly.The look in his eyes is too much, too much, too much, so she turns her head into his hand (calluses scrape across her cheek) and she bites his thumb.It is hard at first and she watches the pain play across his face, and she hates it and relishes in it.

To her eternal surprise, he is entirely silent.The Scanlan before would have made a joke about kinks, about rough sex, but this new man before her instead watches in the darkness with watering, careful eyes, and he is still.

The cave is noiseless except for her quiet breaths, and she hates that too.Pike turns her head away from his hand and his thumb leaves her mouth, leaving a faint, wet trail by her lips. 

His eyes follow the movement of her face under his hand for a breath before looking at her in confusion, and he is still silent, and she still hates the quiet.

Pike grabs Scanlan’s chin, pulls him up to her, and kisses him hard.Their teeth clack together in his surprise, and he squeaks as her hands find the back of his head, her gauntlets catching slightly on his hair.He finds her waist with his hands, but he doesn’t pull her closer, so she steps fully into his space, pressing herself against him.Still corded and whip-thin, this man, still compact and _small,_ but she still fits neatly in his arms, and she moves to his neck with that same madness singing in her veins and he groans as her hair brushes across his chin and her mouth plays across his tan skin.There is a snap behind her, and a soft _thmp_ as something falls to the ground.

“Pike,” he gasps between breaths—he’s still good at kissing despite the shock, still able to put a shiver in her soul with a twist of the lips—“Pike, what—”

_“Scanlan? Pike? Is everything okay? Any faces of death get you?”_

Vex’s voice over the earring is loud and they jump apart, breathing harshly and shattering the quiet in the cavern.Scanlan looks at her with wide eyes, confusion and lust and longing twitching across his face, and he looks like the man she once knew. 

_“Pike, did he run off again?”_ Percy chimes in, and Scanlan steps back again and Pike loses the look of his eyes in the darkness. _“If so, I believe Vex owes me money.”_

Pike takes a deep breath and reaches into the dust behind her, grabbing the arrow Scanlan had snapped in a tight grip.“We’re fine,” she says into the earring, stepping forward a few feet to where he’d moved away.“Just had a little trouble finding the arrow,” she says, and presses the pieces of arrow into his hand.“We’re on our way back now.”

Her hand is still in his.Scanlan exhales, long and low, and instead places his hand on her shoulder: a respectful, tame place, and something in her stomach turns.Then he steps close to her, and there is a flash of that old grin. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he says.

In a flash of purple, they twist away.

 

* * *

 

_april’s dew becomes autumn’s wine._

_leave everything always unbroken._

**Author's Note:**

> pike is definitely taller than scanlan don't @ me
> 
> title and interstitial text from cosmo sheldrake's "linger longer"


End file.
